mmonwealth, and the Restoration produced religious
difficulties of another kind; the wholesale ejections in 1644 and 1660
testify to the troubles men had to face for conscience' sake. After the
Restoration the Puritan, the Protestant Dissenter, was excluded with the
Romanist.

In the eighteenth century a certain variety was introduced by the entry
of students from the West Indies, sons of planters; one or two
individuals came from the American colonies. The constant wars drew off
men to military careers, and the religious movements towards the close
of the century attracted men, after leaving College, to Unitarianism or
Wesleyanism. The celebrated Rowland Hill was a member of the College;
Francis Okeley, after leaving, became a Moravian or a Mystic. Such
dissenters as entered the College, and they were very few, were obliged
to leave without graduating.

The removal of all religious tests has thus restored to the ancient
Universities a national character they had not possessed since the early
days of Henry VIII., when all could come, as all were practically of the
same faith.

Thus a wider field is open to the College to draw on, not only in the
British Islands, but in all its colonies and dependencies. On the other
hand, it is no less true that her sons are to be found more widely
scattered. A hundred and fifty years ago one could say of a selected
group of men that the majority would become clergymen or schoolmasters,
a few would become barristers, others would return to their country
estates, one or two might enter the army; with that we should have
exhausted the probabilities. Now there is probably not a career open to
educated men in which members of the College are not to be found; the
State in every department, civil, ecclesiastical, or military, enlists
her sons in its service. The rise of scientific industries has opened
new careers to trained men. We talk of the spacious days of Elizabeth;
if space itself has not increased it is at least more permeated with men
who owe their early training to the foundation of the Lady Margaret.

CHAPTER VIII

SOCIAL LIFE

Hitherto we have confined ourselves to an outline of the College history
on what may be called its official side. In what follows we deal briefly
with some features of the life of the place.

[Illustration: THE NEW COURT]

The original, and perhaps the chief, purpose of the College in the eyes